How Does Nathaniel Hawthorne Use Symbols In The Scarlet Letter

Symbolism is one feature in The Scarlet Letter that Nathaniel Hawthorne uses quite a lot; and I find it especially interesting how he is able to cleverly use metaphors to get this symbolism across. Symbolism runs wild throughout the book in the form of Pearl. Pearl is like an extended metaphor in a sense because, throughout the romance, Hawthorne uses her as a living reminder of the Scarlet Letter and the sin that Hester commits. This strategy adds an interesting element to the book since the reader is constantly reminded of Hester’s condemnation without Hawthorne having to continually speak of the Scarlet Letter and the sin attached to it. I personally feel bad for both Hester and Pearl because of the way others treat them. It angers me that no one gives Pearl a chance because she deserves to be seen as an individual and not just the result of a sin her mother committed. Even Hester believes “that her deed
Day after day, she looked fearfully into the child’s expanding nature, ever dreading to detect some dark and wile peculiarity, that should correspond with the guiltiness to which she owed her being” (Hawthorne 104). If Pearl remains in the settlement, she’ll have her mother’s sin to carry as a burden until the day she dies.
My favorite metaphor in the book is, “The very law that condemned her---a giant of stern features, but with vigor to support, as well as to annihilate, in his iron arm---had held her up through the terrible ordeal of her ignominy” (Hawthorne 91). At first, I didn’t quite go far enough in my analysis of the passage; but when I delved deeper, I found that he is slyly comparing the Puritan settlement to this “great giant with stern features.”